Novelist Jane Smiley will bring her insights on writing to San Luis Obispo
Jane Smiley knows a thing or two about the novel.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “A Thousand Acres” is coming to San Luis Obispo on Wednesday to talk about writing as part of the Foundation for San Luis Obispo Libraries’ Book and Author Series.
In addition to 1992’s “A Thousand Acres,” which is a retelling of William Shakespeare’s “King Lear” on an Iowa farm, Smiley, 65, has written 12 novels, a biography of Charles Dickens that examines the history of the form and was a professor of English for 15 years at Iowa State University.
Her lecture Wednesday at Cal Poly’s Spanos Theatre is titled “The Education of a Writer: How every book is different, and never what you expected, no matter how knowledgeable you thought you were.”
Even though she’s been writing for such a long time, Smiley said, the surprising turns a project takes keeps her engaged.
“What I always say is you have a thought as you’re moving along, and it can be either a pebble or a seed,” she explained. “If it’s a pebble, it’s just a thought and you put it in and you move along. But if it’s a seed, it generates other thoughts and changes the way that whatever you’re writing is headed. And that’s good. Because that gives your writing energy.”
Smiley’s latest novel, “Early Warning,” was released last month. It is the second book in a trilogy following the Langdon family through the decades.
The first book in the trilogy, “Some Luck,” begins the journey in the 1920s on an Iowa farm. Some of the family members branch out and explore their lives all across the United States, but one relative stays on the farm and takes on the challenges of the American farmer.
In “Early Warning,” family members confront the changing American landscape of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. Her third novel, “The Golden Age,” will bring the family into the present day; it’s due out in October.
Tackling the history of the United States in the 20th century is a huge undertaking, but Smiley, who has blogged for the Huffington Post and makes no bones about her liberal politics, was unafraid of the challenge.
“A novel can’t help but be political because as soon as you are writing a novel, then you are writing about a protagonist in relationship to the world that he or she lives in,” Smiley said. “Everything can’t be sweetness and light. Otherwise you wouldn’t have anything interesting in the novel.”
“I find that most novels, even in spite of the author, have kind of a liberal political theory,” she added. “Inevitably, your theory is political and you must have one.”
In the end, Smiley hopes her talk at Cal Poly will generate “interest and excitement” among the audience.
“If they come in and sit and listen to me, I hope they want to go read some books. Go read some novels,” she said. “(They don’t) have to be mine either. Just go enjoy yourself.”
This story was originally published May 26, 2015 at 5:51 AM with the headline "Novelist Jane Smiley will bring her insights on writing to San Luis Obispo."